Summer Camp Hangover — Magnifications

I am a youth pastor and it is summer time. That image alone, for those of us in ministry, provides enough context to envision a 30 year old athletic-build, chaco- wearing, bull horn sporting, energetic person blobbing teenagers and playing full court basketball (of which I did, all of the above). I just returned from summer camp. Post -camp I always have a “camp hangover.” Mostly this can be remedied with a hot bath, good beverage and at least twelve hours where I don’t have to interact. With anyone.

But this year was different. This year it was harder to recover from the notorious camp hangover. This year the recovery was not from lack of sleep or too much dirt under my toenails. This year I struggled recovering from the stories I heard. After ten years in youth ministry I thought I had “heard it all.” But this year I experienced a fresh sadness, a fresh pain over how young the students’ stories of self-harm, bullying and sexual identity confusion peppered the sweet experience of blobs, kayaks and swimming pools.

And so I approach John 10:11-15 with the pain and suffering of my students and I hear the words of Jesus.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees the wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep.” John 10:11-15

In this passage Jesus assumes pain and suffering. He assumes darkness, attack and scattering for his people. He assumes a sacrifice will be required. And he sets himself in this scene cast in a deeply meaningful role, especially for the Jews to whom He was speaking.

The image of the shepherd was a familiar one. It would have invited the Jews to recall images of God as Israel’s shepherd both personally (Psalm 23) and communally (Ezekiel 34:11-16). Jesus is placing himself right smack dab in the middle in God’s redemptive story in the life of Israel. This is a story wrought with pain, turmoil, darkness and betrayal. And Jesus is intentionally saying, in the midst of this,

I am good.

I am the sacrifice for you.

I will not abandon you.

I will protect you.

I care about you.

I know you.

I am the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

Contemporary readers can oftentimes miss the significance of biblical imagery because of the great divide that separates us from the ancient world in which Jesus lived.

A few facts on shepherds and sheep in ancient Israel:

The shepherd was most often the youngest or weakest child in the family (commonly could have been a young girl).

The terrain in which the sheep lived was dry, rocky and dangerous. The shepherd led the sheep on the mountainside where small patches of grass would sprout up similar to alfalfa sprouts.

At night, when the sheep were most vulnerable to attack, the shepherd would sleep right in the middle of the flock. (This is still the practice of Bedouin shepherds today).

Jesus is still placing Himself right in the middle of our stories wrought with pain, suffering, darkness and betrayal. His gentle calm voice says “I Am…” Not “I was” or “I will be.” But “I am the good shepherd.” And “I am leading you through this treacherous terrain.”

Jesus is the one who led us through the desert to the Promise Land. He is the one who was with us in captivity in Babylon. He is the one who led us back. He is the one with us in whatever darkness we find ourselves in today. He is right smack dab in the middle of us.

So like aloe-vera on a red, sun-burned peeling back, I will treat my camp hangover with this balm,

In the midst of self-hard, I am good.

In the midst of bullying, I will not abandon you.

In the midst of sexual identity confusion, I know you. I care about you.

Kelly Edmiston Youth and Family Minister First Colony Church of Christ Sugar Land, Texas